Six weeks or so before, I went dancing there. Swing dancing up at the club at the top, “Windows On The World”. Years before, my friend Ronnie was turned away from the place because he was wearing jeans (before they found out he’d brought Andy Warhol with him). But in the years since then the admission guidelines must have become less severe, as by 2000 or so even us cheapskate swing dancers were allowed up. Swing dancers, at least when I was one, were notorious for not buying enough drinks. Getting shitfaced made it difficult to safely Lindy Hop. But it was a perfect scene for me to go out and have some fun with people, without feeling too left out for not drinking, as I was still in relatively early sobriety then.
Weird, Wonderful “Uncle Walter”
September 3rd. There I was, still trying to get my head around Sam Shepard dying — my mind swirling with memories of 16 year old me smoking Old Gold cigarettes in a Chuck Yeager A2 mil-spec USAAF jacket, reading “Motel Chronicles” and chewing Beeman’s Gum, imagining myself in a dusty bar on the Mojave or in New Mexico, wishing I could be that understated, monolithic, quietly cool. I wanted to be Sam Shepard. More specifically, I wanted to be Sam Shepard in “The Right Stuff.” But I was far too batshit. I was Chris Orbach. A little overgrown intellectually, maybe, but way way behind emotionally.
An Oscar Takeaway
It was the first Oscars I watched almost all the way through in years. And I enjoyed it. AND I took the bait, live-posting snarky and (I thought) funny barbs about what I liked and what I didn't. I got pissed at Travolta for fucking up the name of a Broadway goddess, and defended Pink's phrasing issues during "Over The Rainbow", on the grounds that it's BECAUSE she was out of her idiom that the performance was, in its way, unique and powerful (and she sang the intro, which NOBODY does). I loved that The Edge didn't shove a delay pedal into my neck, the way he does on 99% of what U2 plays. I played along and was entertained.